


Letter From Home

by whereismywarden (PearOh)



Series: Dragon Age - Warden Ana Surana - Sad Mages Worldstate [14]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Anger, Crying, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Dragon Age II Quest - All That Remains
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-29
Updated: 2020-07-29
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:08:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25588030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PearOh/pseuds/whereismywarden
Summary: Carver receives a letter from Kirkwall. The news of his mother's death hit him like a tidal wave.
Relationships: Carver Hawke/Female Surana
Series: Dragon Age - Warden Ana Surana - Sad Mages Worldstate [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1475330
Kudos: 9
Collections: Sad Mages Worldstate





	Letter From Home

“Letters for you and the rest of the Wardens, Commander.”

“Thank you, Private.” Surana goes through each envelope individually and hands them out to their recipient. Oghren mumbles into his beard and puts his letter away in his pack. Carver figures it’s from Felsi and the kid. The dwarf usually feels the need to drink an entire cask of ale before reading them. Not that he's ever needed an excuse to get intoxicated, mind you. 

Beside him, Nathaniel is beaming with joy. His sister sent him news about his nephew who has apparently been missing his “Uncah Nate” quite a lot.

Ana goes through her own mail rather quickly. There is a lot of it. Most come from people in need of assistance, cries for help from all over Ferelden, sometimes even from abroad. She’ll take a closer look at them later, in the privacy of her study. There is a more personal one, however, that is attached to a small package. She laughs upon reading it. “Hey, Oghren! Zevran sent a bottle of Antivan Brandy and a bar of soap! Guess which one’s for you!”

“Bah! You can keep both! I don’t like that bottled piss!”

“Good, because that one wasn’t for you!” she retorts.

“He could still use the soap,” Sigrun adds, starting a back-and-forth banter between the two of them that ends with Oghren sulking into his own corner.

Carver frowns at his own envelope. He recognizes the shaky handwriting as his uncle’s. That's weird, Gamlen never writes. Most of the mail he usually receives comes from his mother. She writes to him every month. His brother also sends letters every so often, mostly to complain about how little Carver writes back to them. But Gamlen? He couldn't care less about his nephews if he tried to. So why would he write to him?  _ Something must have happened to Alwyn, _ Carver thinks.  _ He's been taken to the Gallows, and Mother is too distraught to send the letter herself. _

He rips the seal off the envelope, his fingers trembling as he unfolds the small piece of vellum, and the world dissolves around him.  _ No! Not this! Anything but this! It can’t be happening… She can’t be… Al would never have let it happen…  _

“Carver?” He is startled by the sound of his name. It’s Ana. The other wardens aren't paying attention to him, but she does. She's like that, always looking out for her friends. “Are you all right?” 

The concern in her voice feels warm. He wants nothing more than to fall into her arms, to be allowed to crumble and be vulnerable. But instead, Carver clenches his jaw so as not to break in front of the others and, not trusting his voice, gives the Commander a curt nod before walking out of the room as fast as he can without drawing too much attention to himself. He doesn’t stop until he has reached his personal quarters. 

Locking the door behind him, he lets out an agonizing scream and unleashes his anger. Anger at the man who took his mother. Anger at Kirkwall for being a cesspool of violence and corruption. Anger at an unjust world. Anger at the Maker who allowed it to happen. 

Carver grabs the nearest object, an empty metallic fruit bowl, and throws it across the room. It hits the stone wall and falls down with an unsatisfying clang. The small outburst does very little to assuage his rage, and so he flips over the table where he and Ana often eat breakfast together and flings one of the chairs across the room. It breaks on impact, wooden pieces spreading out all over the floor. And, as he stands there gaping at the damage, Carver feels suddenly very tired. His legs are heavy with grief, and he lets out a pained groan as he slumps down on the floor. 

He doesn’t cry. He’s not sure he can even cry anymore. His father, his sisters, and now the Maker steals his mother as well.  _ Why? _ It isn't fair. She didn’t deserve this. None of them did. It's not fair.

For a moment, Carver wishes he had never gone on that stupid Deep Roads expedition. He could have saved her if only he'd been there. Then he starts wishing the darkspawn had killed him at Ostagar. It would have saved him from the pain of losing so many people.

He doesn't know how long he's been staring into the empty fireplace when he hears small knocks on the bedroom door. He doesn't answer, let them find someone else to bother. More knocks, more insistent this time.

“Go away!” he barks at the wooden door.

“Carver, it’s me.” Ana again, her voice soft with concern.

She sounds worried. So he makes the effort to get up and open the door. Her eyes survey the room, briefly stopping on the overturned table and the debris of the broken chair before settling on him. He wants to apologize for the mess, but there is a ball, stuck deep down his throat, that makes speaking a painful process, so he just stands there looking like he's been impaled by an ogre. 

The expression on Ana's face is one of kindness and compassion. She lifts a hand to cup his cheek. “What happened?” He leans into her touch, closing his eyes.

He can't bring himself to say it. Saying it would mean accepting it, and he just can't. So he shows her the letter and slumps down on the edge of his bed. Ana sits down next to him on the bed and starts reading. When she has finished, she looks up at him, her eyes wet. She doesn't say anything. There is nothing to say. Instead, she wraps her arms around his shoulders in a comforting embrace. That’s when he breaks. The pain is sudden and ugly. It hits him like a tidal wave. He cries into the crook of her neck, holding onto her like a drowning man clutching at a piece of driftwood. She rocks him back and forth like a child, running her hand through his hair in comfort.

“Will you stay with me?” he asks when he finds his voice again. “I don't want to be alone right now.”

“Of course.” She whispers to him, her breath brushing against his ear. “I’m not going anywhere, I promise.”

* * *

Carver wakes up the next morning shortly before dawn, surprised to have slept at all, Ana still at his side. Her body is entangled around his, clinging to him tightly the way one holds onto someone after a storm to keep them afloat. He can feel her warm, steady breath caressing the nape of his neck. Her left arm is wrapped around him, the palm of her hand resting against his belly. He takes it in his own hand, mesmerized by how small it looks compared to his. His mind takes him back to another time, another place, before their lives were turned upside down, when they'd only just met and her hands were still delicate and smooth. She was a scholar then. Now she is a warrior, a battle-hardened maiden. Her hands are no longer soft. They are cracked and leathery. The hands of a fighter. He loves those hands.

“I'm sorry. I didn't mean to wake you,” he whispers to her.

“How did you know I was awake?”

“There was a shift in your breathing.” He turns around to face her, never letting go of her hand.

Her thumbs start drawing small, soothing circles over his knuckles. “How are you feeling?”

“I don't know.”

“It’s okay to be weak, Carver, especially in a moment like this. You’re not alone. We're all here for you.” She lets go of his hand to cup his cheek softly. “Whatever you need, you just have to ask.”

“I…” He thinks about it for a short while. What he needs is his mother, but he can’t have that anymore. “I would like to go to Kirkwall. I want to see my brother.”

“Of course.”

As an answer, he presses his lips lightly against hers before leaning into her embrace, their foreheads touching.

“Would you come with me to Kirkwall?” he asks tentatively. “I think I would feel better with you by my side.”

“I thought it was implied that I would.”

A small smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. “Thank you,” he whispers. “For being here, for— for everything.” 

“You don't have to thank me. I care too much about you to abandon you in a moment like this.”

He still doesn't understand how that happened — how the greatest hero of their age came to fall for him. But he's thankful for it. He isn't sure where he would be without her, or what he would have done. The thought of having to go through all this on his own scares him. Her presence in his life doesn't take the pain away, it can't fill the void left by his mother's absence, but it feels like a beacon of hope, like a light in the darkness.

He pulls her closer to him, as much as he can without crushing her in his embrace. He buries his face in the crook of her neck and breathes in her scent. She's gotten into the habit of wearing perfume when they’re staying at the Keep — a small luxury she can indulge in when they aren’t hunting darkspawn. The sweet smell of jasmine and spice reminds him that he still has a family.

“I love you so much,” he tells her. “You know that, right?”

“I love you too, Carver.”


End file.
